Hi working on my ranged thief / mage build.

So how do you maximize the damage of a ranged sneak attack? I'm only talking about the opening sneak attack, not subsequent attacks after the opener.

Currently I'm going with:

X elemental damage applied to bow

Spell Buff: fortify agility, fortify marksman (applied before sneak attack for dam boost)

Poison of choice ( I'm guessing a potion w/ damage health + elemental damage is optimal)

Am I missing anything here? It is my understanding that status effects will only be applied to subsequent attacks, so I don't think the DAM can be modified by an status effect applied by the opening sneak attack.

Thanks for any help you can offer.

I can't add nothing more to your setup.If you've already considered the efficiency of the texture of bow and arrow to certain kinds of enemies.

The Sneak Attack modifier (2X Novice, 3X Apprentice and up) only applies to the physical damage, not to any poisons or enchantments.

Fire your bow, then switch to a one-handed sword with the arrow in flight. If you hit, the sneak damage multiplier will then be applied as a melee multiplier (4X, 6X). It's a bit on the shady side, but it does work.

Sounds pretty good.
I do Soul Trap, fire and shock damage on my bow
I wait for more than two seconds to fire the shot, as if you wait a second longer than just pulling back the bow and firing, you will do increased damage.
I add poison, although I tend to add silence to my poisons. Fire damage is nice too.
I repair my bow to 125 for an additional damage bonus.

If it's a big area, you could try to sneak in a Weakness to Elemental and Poison Target spell beforehand. All that said, at Master Marksman, I one-hit kill all spellcasters save shamans, if they are wearing armor I need to add a basic damage health potion, if they are goblins or flesh atronachs or high end battlemages or melee fighters, I need to add a powerful poison. Sounds like you got it covered.

That I did not know. :facepalm:

No wonder they're still standing sometimes.

Is it correct to say that the fortify marksman / agility spell is the only thing modified by the SNEAK multiplier and all other dam is done at the regular rate?

If your sneak is high and the enemy has low sneak you can do multiple sneak attacks. this works best on undeads.

You might try drain health 100 as an enchantment, perhaps together with a damage effect. drain health 100 kills the enemy if he has less than 100 health after the attack but don't hurt if he has more than 100 so it would make killing weaker enemies easier but enemies with lots of health would be harder.